Talk:Liability insurance

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I have completed the wikification of the page. If you don't think it does the job well enough, feel free to pitch in. -David91 08:09, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] US position

The addition of an element specific to the U.S. is most useful. Howe bbvn bv bn bver, I am a little unclear why the public policy is to make the existence of liability insurance inadmissible. If I was a prospective litigant, it would change my view on whether to sue if I knew that the defendant had no insurance. Obviously, a successful judgment as to liability is worthless if the defendant has inadequate private funds out of why to pay damages. The U.S. public policy would seem to operate as a deterrent to litigation against private citizens or small companies or large companies whose solvency is doubted because the plaintiff may be suing a "man of straw". And lawyers may not recover their costs!!! I'm probably being very stupid in not seeing the immediately obvious answer. Could you hep me out please. -David91 05:26, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(If you're still reading this page) I think your problem may be the definition of "admissible." Certainly, a plaintiff may discover whether or not their defendant has insurance (and may probably use judicially ordered discovery to do so once a lawsuit has been instituted). The issue is that a litigant may not admit evidence of insurance at trial as evidence that the defendant is guilty, i.e. may not say "Look, jury, the defendant doctor has medical malpractice insurance-- clearly, he's a crummy doctor if he's going to pay an insurance company to handle all the claims that are going to be brought against him." I've added a link in the article to the relevant section of the evidence law article. QuixoticKate 16:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

What's more, a jury must often determine the amount of damages that the defendant owes to the plaintiff. Thinking "oh well, he's got insurance" may cause a jury to drive the monetary award up - beyond what one would deem appropriate, but for the knowledge of the insurance company's "deep pockets" ... Omegadrone 00:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)